Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is the 222 Too Light For Deer?

If it isn't I have my real cannon 300 Savage 700 Classic ready too. 150's just under 2700, big time!

I hope ya'll knock 'em dead, literally. I seldom get a standing broadside perfect shot though.

Yep.

In the real world, you don't always get perfect bullet placement.

The luxury is the stand is 30 yards behind the house, and it overlooks a corn field, which will be cut in another month.

The gun season lasts 2 months.

So.....

every week day, I will pick her up at 4pm from school; we will haul ass home and be in the stand by 4:30.

Then sit for an hour.

The shot will present itself.

If it ever becomes harder than this, I will rethink the strategy.

That said, I used the 222 on weekends when I went deep in the brush or woods and rarely got a good broadside shot. Get your heresy chimes ready, because I'm going to say "head and neck shots".

Most .222s have a 1 in 14 twist. I have a Sako Vixen that's been rechambered to .223 and it shoots lights out with a 55 gr. bullet. I don't think it's likely to stabilize a 60 or 64 gr. bullet, but you may just have to try it. Miracles do happen!

Well, I consider the .222 a fine deer cartridge. My brother and I have killed more deer with a Hornet though and never lost one. If I am "horn" hunting, I use a .280 or 7x57. Meat hunting or culling I now use a Fireball or .222.

I like neck shots. Generally they are either a DRT or a clean miss.

We've used this bullet a fair bit and it works real well on whitetail.

So you've got this buck at 225 yards.........do you really wanna have a .222 in your hands?







.....or this one?







....or maybe this pig? Not me.....ever.

I see you have decided to go straight to a "Stopping Rifle", when you know perfectly well, that whitetail deer rarely charge, even when wounded.

I get carried away sometimes.

I've shot the bottom out of Coke bottles at 210 yards, I'm betting I could find a way to make a connection with one of those at 225.

I'd want something spun other than 1-14", but I'd not be skeered.

No benches out there. If the wind's blowing 15mph+ you're screwed x2.

Not a writer. When I was a rookie trooper in a lightly populated area, my one and only gun store guy told me that the duce was the most popular cartridge for his poacher customers. He was correct, and they seldom bought beef. Smallish deer, head and neck shots, and relatively quiet all worked for them. Using the same thinking, if one has the discipline to use it, it will work in legal circles as well.

I have taken many ferrel goats with head shots from a .218 Bee and a total of one cull deer with a between the eyes shot with a .22LR. All DRT.

JACK

The second deer I ever killed (1967) was with a .222 shooting Norma factory ammo...50 grain bullet...nowadays I have "stepped up" to .223 with 65 grain SGK's over 27 grains of Varget.

I don't shoot off [bleep] benches.

Yeah, putting a bullet into a target the size of a basketball at 225 yards with 15mph winds is a real motherpuker.

You'd obviously not know, since you've never killed anything remotely that big, unless you shot yourself in the mouth somehow.

Not sure what you consider "shorter" but I have killed them out to 400 yards in the east. Last one I killed with a .22 CF (223) was right on 275 yards.

Maybe you could hit this one though....he was just standing there.....too old and fat to leave maybe.

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I'm with JGR on this. The 15 or 30 mph winds in west Texas, changed me to an 06 pushing 180s at respectable speed. That is much more than needed to kill deer, but absolutely needed to hit them with careful hold off.

Jack